History and motivational structure of the lexical semantic field "pride" in the Russian language

This article is a part of the study of the lexical-semantic field (LSF) "pride" in the diachronic and ethnospecific aspects and deals with the study of motivational features of the LSF "pride" units at different stages of the Russian language. The field motivational analysis allows identifying the features of objects and phenomena existing in an ethnos's mind, which gives an opportunity to see the world-image of an ethnic group. Chronological stratification of the motivational models operating within the LSF "pride" allows watching how the concept "pride" changes in the minds of language bearers. The research is conducted on the data of lexicographical sources, as well as data of the National Corpus of the Russian language. In the modern Russian literary language, six motivational models operate in the LSF "pride". Lexicographical sources and corpus data analysis shows that some of them are presented in language since the Old Russian period. They are motivational models based on connection between pride and unjustified subject's sense of superiority (comp. arrogance) and between pride and subject's desire to look more important (comp. coll. to swagger). The modern colloquial motivational model "pride" < 'intellectual activity of the subject forming an inadequate understanding of oneself and others' (comp. to overween) began to operate in the 15th - 16th centuries. The emergence of the literary motivational model 'pride' < 'subject's notion about him-/herself as a significant and positive element of society' (ramp. dignity) refers to the 18th century, when the concept "pride" began to be interpreted as a feeling evaluated positively. The MM "pride" < 'subject's behavior irrelevant to his/her actual social position' originates in the 19th century (comp. self-esteem). The dialectal LSF "pride" mostly reflects the motivational connection of the Old Russian and Great Russian periods. For instance, motivational and semantic features of dialectal units preserved the Old Russian connections between concepts "pride" and "recalcitrance, insolence", "subject's self-isolating from society", "courage" and "high social status". Lexis motivational analysis shows that dialect connections between pride and self-isolation as well as specific speech behavior were actualized in the Great Russian period. A part of motivational models that operated in LSF "pride" earlier are not presented in modern language. In the Old Russian period, the connection between pride and imaginary intellectual superiority was particularly relevant, but from the 18th century, this relationship weakened and already in the 20th century this connection was not expressed motivationally. the same happened to the Old Russian motivational model "pride" < 'overestima-tion of the importance of one's opinions, desires': it lost its relevance in the 18th century.

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